Social & secure commerce

The Forbes Retail Tech Trends are not always uplifting, but can also bring you back down to earth. That doesn't bother us though, being groundedis just as important as flying high.

For example, it can be observed that over the last two years, the demand for security has increased immensely. For many, the word “security” rightly rings alarm bells, because the plus in security is usually coupled with a minus in freedom. Companies like Voxel51 have used their know-how to offer solutions for this. Via Computer Vision, they evaluate the traffic in stores, for example, and warn of emerging sources of infection. Their competitor Wipro, on the other hand, uses heat sensor technology, which is also intended to detect sources of infection at an early stage. Algorithms have generally become an indispensable part of our lives, and we are well on the way toward achieving this. Another step in this direction is the idea of supporting supply chains in the future with artificial intelligence in order to detect disruptions at an early stage. This should enable retailers to react more flexibly and offer alternative supply chains in order to circumvent such disruptions.

Perfect or optimized processes are the be-all and end-all, which also applies to social media channels. More than ever, attention must be paid to using every customer touchpoint to reach consumers on as many channels as possible. You already recognize it from Instagram. More and more purchases are taking place on the platform, however. Here you can go one step further and not just focus on the purchase alone, but deliver a coherent experience to the customer, interwoven with social media. For example, the purchase can take place via Instagram, the shipping status can be queried via Facebook, and the item can ultimately be picked up in the store.

So there’s no need to fear any restriction of freedom here; on the contrary, it’s a positive development overall. Because at the end of the day it’s all about optimizing maximally interwoven communities and their processes and respecting and protecting each other – and there’s really nothing wrong with that.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2020/11/16/the-5-biggest-retail-trends-in-2021/